The Indian Contractor visits Vietnam and China on a Shoestring

I was to rendezvous with my friend at Huangshan station and scale some mountains there. I smsed him when I got there and he came down a while later. This friend of mine was Gilbert. He was my army comrade whose father was working in China. This meant that accomodation was taken care of in Shanghai. A very big advantage because Shanghai is one of the expensive cities in CHina. But we got much much more than accomodation during this trip. I must thank him and his family for having us at their place during this trip.

So, we met up at the station and took the taxi to his hotel. Gilbert is a bon vivant and normally seeks comfort on important stuff like accomodation etc. So we went to his room in a 4 star hotel and deposited our bags there. We were not going to spend the night here so we used his room for depositing our luggage. His family had arrived here a day earlier.

We were already running late so we had a hasty breakfast and took the taxi up to the start of the mountains to begin the climb. The ride was about one hour long. Taxis in Huang shan are much much cheaper than the big cities. You can rent the taxi for the whole day for little more than RMB60.

We planned to scale some of the peaks of the huangshan mountains(I think thats what they're called). These mountains are said to be some of the most beautiful in China and we were not disappointed. The rock formations and the lush greenery was very beautiful indeed. We were given a choice to either climb all the way or to take a cable car. We took the cable car because it was already nearing 10 and we had to be back at the hotel by 5pm to see some of the local sights near the hotel. The cable car took us about 500 metres up and we scaled the remaining 1300 or so metres by walk. The entrance fees were a staggering RMB150 per person and the cable car charges were extra (60RMB I think). We bought the tickets and began our walk. It was a little disappointing that most of the walkway had been paved and staircased. This took away some of the challenge of climbing mountains. In fact it became much easier than I thought. And the climate was fantastic! A cool 15 degrees or so with little sunlight hitting us directly.

The staircases really cut down the work. Fears of my lack of sleep affecting my performance soon vanished. We made it to the first peak within one hour. Taking our time at various vantage points to take pictures. At certain places the people on the other side of the mountain looked like coloured ants on an anthill.

Then we saw locks being hung at various locations along the walkways. They were appanrently hung there to bring goodluck to the people who hung them. I do hope it works because I saw atleast a thousand locks in total. A lot of people needed this kinda luck.

We took a few pictures at certain precarious locations and carried on walking. It was an easy walk considering we were at such high altitudes. Then we saw something amazing. We saw these workers carrying 80kg Baskets loaded with vegetables and other eatables walking up the staircase to the hotels on the peaks. It looked inhuman. I could'nt get myself to take their picture as they looked so tired and worn out after they finished every flight of stairs. The would let go of their baskets and take a breather before proceeding further. Their bodies were sculpted into shape by these trecherous shuttles up and down the mountain. It seemed they earned RMB 100 (US$12) for every shuttle. what a way to make a living!

We completed only a small portion of the whole mountain range due to time constraints. But it was a nice experience especially considering our battle with sleep the previous night. We reached the return cable car station at around 2. I munched on some crackers and topped up some water before making the downward journey. I wished we had allocated more time for huangshan, as we could have done the whole journey by foot and seen a few more peaks before descending down. Now came the ordeal of getting a return cable car. The reurn cable car was a big one that took on about 50 to 60 passangers at a time. There was a mad rush for this and we had to wait about half an hour before we got on board.

Believe me, it could have been a lot worse. In fact the cable car that brought us up was notorious for long queues that could go upto on hour or more in waiting time. The half hour wait was nothing compared to these nightmares. HUangshan is best visited early in the morning. We were just lucky that day to have escaped the crowds.

Once back at the base station, we took a cab to where our cab was parked and changed taxis and got back to the hotel in an hour or so. My buddy and Gilbert knocked off on the return journey.

We reached the hotel around 1630. We decided whether to shower first or carry on visiting the neighbourhood market. We chose the latter and walked to the market on the other side of the street. This place had a rustic feel to it. It had these old buildings and shophouses that looked really nice. The shops were mainly handicraft shops but it did not have touts coercing you to look at their wares or buy something from them. They just went about doing their own stuff while we were free to look at what we pleased. This was my kinda place. I walked around for a while before two girls ran towards us and spoke to Gilberts dad. They told him I looked like a guy from the movie "Pirates of the Carribean" and wanted to take a picture with me. What could I do? I agreed.

The stares of shock and amazement continued here too. Not that I expected any different reaction. Beijing reacted the same way, what makes you think Huangshan(lesser known city than Beijing) would react any differently.

It was here that I made a name stamp in Chinese. My name was split into 4 chinese characters and carved on a stone that could be used as a stamp for letters etc. It looked cool and cost me only RMB50. I also bought two paintings in ink for RMB60. I love black and white photography hence could not resist these hand painted black and white pictures. I had never shopped like this at any point of my life. We settled Dinner at one of the restaurants nearby and on the way back, me and gilbert munched on a corn. It was sweeter than those in Vietnam, hence I did not like it much.

The time was approaching 7 and our train was at nine. We still had time for a shower. We returned to the hotel and had a shower before setting off for the station. It felt nice reaching the station well ahead of schedule as we had been traumatised by the events of the previous journey.

We boarded the train around nine. We had soft sleepers this time so a good nights sleep was assured! We sat down and chatted for a while. We were joined by an australian who was Chinese by birth but Australian for more than 20 years. She spoke fluent Chinese and was backpacking her way around China. She was a good conversationist and just about everyone in our compartment and the next seemed to want to talk to her! She was moving all over the train and talking to all the people who had gotten to know her. To think she was seated next to us but we only saw her moments before we went to sleep. Me and Gilbert chatted till about 1 am and I knocked off after that.

A man about 2 seats away was snoring louder than the train but I was too tired and slept deeply inspite of all these hinderances. It was one of the best night's sleep I had in that week.